TN TN - MCEWEN, human heart found in salt pile - adult male - 16 Dec 2022

[IceIce9]

Table salt is refined to be food grade; road salt usually isn't.

Some places in my area use non-food grade beet sugar as a deicer, even though it's more expensive, because it isn't as corrosive to roads and vehicles as salt.

The county where I live uses beet juice mixed with salt in an 80/20 mixture. The roads are purple when they pre-treat before a forecasted snow or ice event.

 

[IceIce9]

IMO this is a medical specimen being used for a prank and theres nothing nefarious happening. (distasteful and probably criminal, but not homicide or grave robbing).

This is what I think as well.

 

[RickshawFan]

Woah, Nellie. This is a SALTY tale... The Tell-tale heart that needs to do a whole lot more 'splainin'.

I'm thinking a body part that got mishandled by a funeral home. There have been stories of funeral homes not being able to cope with bodies for one reason or another.

Ex-Funeral Home Owner Pleads Guilty to Selling Body Parts

Megan Hess targeted poor and vulnerable families, charging them up to $1,000 for cremations she never performed.

www.thedailybeast.com

Or else it was robbed from a grave, and there were quality issues chez the thief and/or the paying customer. Recall:

Alistair Cooke's bones stolen by New York gang

· Relatives of Letter from America author 'outraged'· Body parts ring included surgeons and undertakers

www.theguardian.com

Stealing Alistair Cook's Bones

The New York Daily News reports that a body-snatching ring, operating illegally to sell tissue for use in transplants, managed to obtain and distribute the bones of famed British broadcaster Alistair Cook after his death in 2004. Bill Sherman of the Daily News fills Madeleine Brand in on a...

www.npr.org

 

[airportwoman]

The county where I live uses beet juice mixed with salt in an 80/20 mixture. The roads are purple when they pre-treat before a forecasted snow or ice event.

This was the best emoji I could think of. People who aren't from the area are probably a bit freaked out if they see the road is purple.

 

[airportwoman]

Woah, Nellie. This is a SALTY tale...

I'm thinking a body part that got mishandled by a funeral home. There have been stories of funeral homes not being able to cope with bodies for one reason or another.

Ex-Funeral Home Owner Pleads Guilty to Selling Body Parts

Megan Hess targeted poor and vulnerable families, charging them up to $1,000 for cremations she never performed.

www.thedailybeast.com

Or else it was robbed from a grave, and there were quality issues chez the thief and/or the paying customer. Recall:

Alistair Cooke's bones stolen by New York gang

· Relatives of Letter from America author 'outraged'· Body parts ring included surgeons and undertakers

www.theguardian.com

Stealing Alistair Cook's Bones

The New York Daily News reports that a body-snatching ring, operating illegally to sell tissue for use in transplants, managed to obtain and distribute the bones of famed British broadcaster Alistair Cook after his death in 2004. Bill Sherman of the Daily News fills Madeleine Brand in on a...

www.npr.org

That Alistair Cooke story is quite the rabbit hole. Several people also got things like hepatitis B and C, and even AIDS, from tissue procured by that crooked agency. Many of the people, Cooke probably being one of them mainly because of his age, also had their body parts harvested without their or their family's permission.

 

[RickshawFan]

I'm not sure it is difficult to get a human heart into a salt pile at a salt-piling facility, whether DOT or the dock. Someone could just lob it over a fence.

 

[txsleuth70]

I wonder what the process is of gathering the salt to take it out to salt the roads. Is it possible that a vehicle was out salting, picked up the heart on the road somehow, and returned it to the salt pile with the unused salt? Sometimes, road accidents can be so violent (especially car vs pedestrian) that organs end up outside the body strewn on the road. I imagine salting vehicles go too slowly for that to happen if one hit a person, but maybe something was left accidentally from another accident.

That's all I can think of, and even then that feels more like zebras than horses! My other thought was maybe it's a prank (with a medical specimen) but I feel like someone pulling a prank would have placed it more obviously. Ofc, murder is always a possibility...

Hearts don't usually detach or jump out of torsos in an accident. And if medical waste, why wasn't there more items or tissue strewn about? I'm going with a message sent...

 

[bombardier]

In terms of the funeral home mishandling theory, I just want to mention (as someone who is training in the industry) that if a full autopsy is done prior, the organs are removed, tossed in a plastic bag, and put back in the abdominal cavity. If someone working at a morgue or funeral home wanted a heart (for what purpose I wouldn't have a clue), they wouldn't necessarily have to cut it out themselves but reach into the bag and take it. I kind of doubt the funeral homes do organ inventory once it's thrown in the bag so I can see how this may go unreported.

 

[RickshawFan]

Wow, this is case is doing a favor to my imagination. How about these possibilities, some ancient, but same same, since salt preserves:

1. A medieval (or other) heart burial that was inadvertently dug up during salt collection.

2. A religious death ritual that involved sending human body parts down a river, eventually to intermingle with the salt water of the ocean. That water eventually making it's way into salt flats via the ebb and flow of tides. I have seen salt flats like that in Africa. I have not seen a ritual like that, but humans have every which kind of death ritual, at least one I know of where body parts notoriously end up—for whatever reason—in the waters of a VERY large river.

3. A body part originating in a punishment for a criminal event, a kind of tit for tat execution, like an "eye for an eye".

4. Voodoo. Perhaps the heart was deemed spooked, and accordingly had to be removed. That would be Haiti, but some other countries I've been to as well.

5. Leonardo da Vinci et al. dissected LIVE humans to study body parts, musculature, etc. Horrible. These could easily have been disposed of haphazardly.

6. Per the Boston article above, DOT was getting its salt from Chile. Chile "disappeared" untold hundreds of people during the Pinochet era. They could easily have ended up in a salt mine.

7. And then, there's the Arabian peninsula salt-providers, and there are some regimes there that are notoriously brutal. Cutting off body parts is not especially rare. I've no idea where they'd be disposed, but maybe at a salty lake bed.

8. A heart separated out during a human sacrificial event.

9. A cemetery dug up during road building.

10. The Dead Sea?

I am sure I'll have more, but I have to catch up with sources, especially:

'Where are they?': families search for Chile’s disappeared prisoners

Many went missing between 1973 and 1990 during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet – and relatives are still seeking answers

www.theguardian.com

Heart-burial - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Examining heart extractions in ancient Mesoamerica (University of Chicago Press)

 

[Shamrock1]

It’s not just medical waste or funeral directors. Medical professionals & even some pharma sales reps practice techniques on cadaver parts. Continuing ed classes with cadavers are sometimes held at hotels. There are usually strict guidelines for cadaver classes (starting with a rule that cadavers can’t be visible from the door if a guest wanders into the wrong ballroom) but I’m sure deviations happen. Perhaps a hotel worker wanted to prank someone?

Brief overview of cadaver courses: Cadavers in the ballroom: Doctors practice their craft at U.S. hotels

One example of guidelines for cadaver classes in hotels (section F): https://www.asra.com/docs/default-s...licy_cadaver_workshops.docx?sfvrsn=d0416688_6

 

[RickshawFan]

I'm gonna have nightmares after reading all that northern South America/Middle Americas sacrifice stuff. Yowza...

IMO not a prank, but something scooped up at the source in a mine or ocean/lake salt bed. And it could be ancient, preserved for centuries. I'm really interested to know if they can date it or figure out a region of provenance.

 

[Goecke]

I think the fact that the heart was surgically removed and was the size of a tennis ball (so it probably wasn't completely dehydrated) rule out that this was a historical specimen. Also, is it stated for sure that DNA was used to determine the heart was human? Other similar cases of singular body parts found under weird circumstances (a brain wrapped in tin foil in Wisconsin and a heart in a ziplock bag in Ohio) both turned out to not be human, even though they were initially suspected to be.

I highly doubt this is a homicide. A prank by students also seems unlikely (I took a cadaver lab in undergrad and the idea of a student being able to smuggle out an entire heart seems near impossible... Either they'd get caught or the staff would realize the heart was missing after the fact).
IMO the most likely explanation is that this is medical waste that was disposed of improperly, either from an autopsy, a cadaver after they were done being used for education, or a funeral home.

 

[airportwoman]

My niece was in a gifted/talented program, and one day, she and some classmates went to some kind of medical lab, and my niece got to hold a preserved human brain. I have a feeling they're going to do genetic genealogy on the tissue, and even if they can't find out who the person was, they could at least find out what ethnic group, etc. they were from.

 

[bombardier]

IMO regardless of the source of the heart, I believe it's placement here would have to be purposeful. I've seen medical biohazard cases where body parts end up in the landfill, sewage system, etc. But a pile of road salt?? I can't see that being accidental.

 

[RickshawFan]

IMO regardless of the source of the heart, I believe it's placement here would have to be purposeful. I've seen medical biohazard cases where body parts end up in the landfill, sewage system, etc. But a pile of road salt?? I can't see that being accidental.

But it could have been scooped up at the SOURCE of the salt (i.e. practically anywhere) in the last year or so before shipping, not deposited by a US individual at a TN DOT salt pile.

I don't see the intention in a prank, so I rule that out. Who would it be spoofing? And why hidden in a salt pile where likely no one would see it?

 

[bombardier]

But it could have been scooped up at the SOURCE of the salt (i.e. practically anywhere) in the last year or so before shipping, not deposited by a US individual at a TN DOT salt pile.

I don't see the intention in a prank, so I rule that out. Who would it be spoofing? And why hidden in a salt pile where likely no one would see it?

It's been mentioned in this thread that salt processing (for the purpose of roadsalt) likely includes getting rid of large debris, passing through filters, and crushing/agitation to get a uniform size (don't ask for more information because this is outside my expertise lmao!). Something large and malleable like a heart likely wouldn't have survived that process intact or recognizable. It must have entered between packaging at the source factory and deposition at the DOT.

 

[diggndeeperstill]

Discovery of human heart in salt barn now treated as homicide case

TBI agents are now investigating the case of a human heart found in a TDOT salt barn. They hope to track the origin of the salt delivery and see a DNA match on the heart.

www.newschannel5.com

The case is now being treated as a homicide, which is now in the hands of TBI to determine where the heart came from, who it came from and why it ended up in a salt bar. They know there was only the adult human heart believed to be from a male.
...
Those who have seen it describe the heart as dehydrated from the salt — about the size of a tennis ball. They told NewsChannel 5 it appeared undamaged as though it had been surgically removed.
...
Morton provides bulk salt for roads in Tennessee and draws from some 20 facilities across the country.

For now, there's no evidence the heart came from any of those facilities.

And second, the crime lab is working on a DNA sample from the heart ..


------
I believe the salt barn to be the curved structure on the right side of the image by the arrow.
I believe the heart to have been found in that pile of salt where the people are by the dump truck.
I wanted to find the exact address to see how difficult to enter this area as I would imagine it is fenced off.
I then found this article.

A HUMAN HEART DISCOVERED IN TDOT SALT BARN IN HUMPHREY'S COUNTY - 3B Media News

MCEWEN, Tenn.(WSMV) – A human heart has been discovered in the Tennessee Department of Transportation’s salt barn in McEwen. According to Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis, TDOT workers were combining products to make brine on Thursday. As workers were retrieving salt from their barn, they...

3bmedianews.com

According to Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis, TDOT workers were combining products to make brine on Thursday. As workers were retrieving salt from their barn, they discovered what they believed to be a weirdly shaped rock.
.....

This makes sense to me. They were taking the salt from the barn by a dump truck and combining and found the heart then. I wonder if there is any way other parts would have been missed prior?

This article even shows the heart I believe.

Human heart found in Tennessee salt storage facility

A startling discovery was made while Tennessee Department of Transportation workers were preparing for inclement weather.

www.wpsdlocal6.com

So here is the location of the salt barn. 10241 Hwy 70 E · 10241 Hwy 70 E, McEwen, TN 37101




Front view on one side. I am willing to bet that gate rolls and locks at the end of the day on this side.


And this is the other side.



Super strange. And it definitely seems like if it was placed here directly in this facility it was done w/ some purpose and intense motivation. I hope that DNA can be found and I hope no other body parts turn up anywhere strange.

 

[Goecke]

Here's some cases of organs found in strange locations that were initially suspected to be human but turned out not to be:

The brain found in Racine isn't a human brain, but that's all we know

So what kind of brain is it?

www.jsonline.com

Heart found in Ziploc bag in Norwalk field is not human, coroner says

The heart found in a Ziploc bag in a Norwalk field is not human, the Lucas County Coroner's Office determined.

www.cleveland19.com

Lungs found on York city street weren't human

The lungs were found just before noon on Wednesday.

www.ydr.com

Resolved - NY - NYC, Pig heart found in trash, Oct'16 - Non-human

"Cops are investigating a grisly discovery at a Lower East Side housing project where a heart was found in a pink box, officials said Thursday. A 68-year-old man said he was rummaging through the garbage at the Riis Houses near FDR Drive when he found the box at the bottom of a container...

www.websleuths.com

The medical examiner *did* say the heart was human, but every other 'individual organ found in a weird location' case I've been able to find turned out not to be human, so until we know for sure that DNA testing was performed I'm not 100% sure this was a human heart. Especially with the dehydration/preservation from the salt that might make it hard to tell.

 

[MissMYB]

Wow. Interested in the outcome of this one.

 

[iamshadow21]

Here's some cases of organs found in strange locations that were initially suspected to be human but turned out not to be:

The brain found in Racine isn't a human brain, but that's all we know

So what kind of brain is it?

www.jsonline.com

Heart found in Ziploc bag in Norwalk field is not human, coroner says

The heart found in a Ziploc bag in a Norwalk field is not human, the Lucas County Coroner's Office determined.

www.cleveland19.com

Lungs found on York city street weren't human

The lungs were found just before noon on Wednesday.

www.ydr.com

Resolved - NY - NYC, Pig heart found in trash, Oct'16 - Non-human

"Cops are investigating a grisly discovery at a Lower East Side housing project where a heart was found in a pink box, officials said Thursday. A 68-year-old man said he was rummaging through the garbage at the Riis Houses near FDR Drive when he found the box at the bottom of a container...

www.websleuths.com

The medical examiner *did* say the heart was human, but every other 'individual organ found in a weird location' case I've been able to find turned out not to be human, so until we know for sure that DNA testing was performed I'm not 100% sure this was a human heart. Especially with the dehydration/preservation from the salt that might make it hard to tell.

Not a organ, as such, but...

UK - UK - Bath, Human foot found in park, Feb'16